Skin and Bones Page 5

  “I’m slipping,” Deb called, her voice shaky. Her anxious call brought him back to the present. “Here I come,” she said. “Are you ready?”

  “Absolutely,” Joe answered. Deb’s sail was horizontal and she dangled dangerously from the end. “I’m going to get you off there, Deb. Just do what I say, okay?”

  “Whatever it takes,” she said. She sounded determined. “Tell me what to do.”

  “When I give the word, you swing toward me. Give it everything you’ve got. I know you’re tired, but try hard. We’re almost there now.” In spite of the adrenaline barreling through him, he managed a half smile in her direction.

  As the sail carrying Deb grew nearer, Joe got ready. He planted his feet solidly on the deck and leaned against the railing for extra support. He watched for the perfect moment, then his voice exploded. “Now!” he yelled. “Swing toward me.”

  “Mmmmmmumph.” Her breath came out in a whoosh. Still clinging tightly to the sail, she swung her body toward the railing. Joe reached out for her but grabbed only air.

  “Again!” he yelled. “Now!” As Deb swung in, Joe reached out. With perfect timing, he caught her around the hips and held tightly. He felt the pull of the sail as it continued to move, still holding its cargo.

  “Let go, Deb,” Joe said, bracing himself. “Let go of the sail. I’ve got you.”

  With a “Yiiieee,” Deb released her grip. The shift in momentum yanked Joe forward. But he was prepared. With a surge of strength, he pulled back, stumbling a little. He kept his balance and dropped Deb gently to her feet.

  “Man, that was some ride,” Joe said, smiling. Deb looked pale and shaky but otherwise okay.

  “I don’t recommend it,” she said, her voice low. “Thanks,” she said, flexing her fingers. “You saved my life—from the windmill and from the creep who forced me here in the first place.”

  “No problem,” Joe said. “What happened exactly?”

  “I got a call at the shop from someone who said he had information for Cody about Mike Brando. I was to tell Cody to meet this guy alone at the Polo Field.”

  “So did you?”

  “Well, you know what Cody’s been through over the last couple of days,” Deb said with a small smile. “I figured he’s just going to give him some information. Where’s the danger?”

  “So you decided to meet him yourself,” Joe concluded. “I’m sure you didn’t even mention it to Cody.”

  “You’re right,” Deb said, nodding.

  “But how did you end up here?” Joe asked.

  “I took a cab to the Polo Field and walked to the spot where we were to meet,” Deb explained. “Someone came up behind me, stuck a gun in my back, and told me to walk to the parking lot.”

  “Did you see the gun?” Joe asked.

  “Not really,” Deb said, “but I felt something, and I didn’t want to argue about it.”

  “Smart move, actually,” Joe agreed. “Did you recognize the person’s voice?”

  “Not really,” she said. “He talked in muffled grunts—didn’t say much.”

  “How did you get to Cody’s car?”

  “It was weird,” she said. “We were headed toward the parking lot when I spotted Cody’s car. The guy told me to stop. I was really surprised to see Cody’s car, so I was looking around for him. I don’t know, maybe the guy was, too.”

  Joe remembered walking around the stands, trying to find the driver of the green car. “I must have been nearby,” he said, “but I never saw you.”

  “Anyway,” Deb continued, “he walked me over to Cody’s car and ordered me to get in the backseat and put my head between my knees.”

  “I saw him pull away, but I didn’t see you. No wonder,” Joe said.

  “He took me into the windmill and was going to tie me up, but I broke away. He was in front of the door, so I ran up the ladder to the deck. I figured I could yell for help, but he was right behind me.”

  “That must have been when I came in,” Joe concluded.

  “Yeah—you know the rest.”

  Joe pulled the cap he’d found out of his back pocket. “Was the man wearing this?”

  “Not when I saw him, he wasn’t,” Deb answered. “I never saw him, really, until he came out on the deck. He was always behind me at the Polo Field. And it was so dark inside the windmill.” She shuddered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  In a few minutes they were out of the windmill and back in the garden. Deb looked up at the sails and shuddered again. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “There’s Cody’s car!” Deb exclaimed. She looked across the drive as Joe followed her out of the windmill. “And a horse?”

  “It’s a long story,” Joe said. “Are you really okay? Can you drive Cody’s car back to the stables? I’ll take the horse and meet you there.”

  “Sure,” Deb answered. Joe handed her the keys. As she pulled out on to the street, he mounted the horse and followed.

  When they got back to the stables, Joe returned the horse. Then he took the wheel of Cody’s car. “Before we go, I’d like to check on something,” he said, pulling away.

  Joe drove back to the spot where the green car had been parked. “It’s still there,” he said when he spotted it. “I’m pretty sure that’s the car your kidnapper abandoned to steal Cody’s.”

  The green car was locked, but Joe could see from the papers lying on the front seat that it was a rental car. He wrote down the name and phone number of the car rental agency and a description of the car, including the license plate number.

  Finally he and Deb left Golden Gate Park, and Joe drove them back to Skin & Bones. In his mind, he was going over his encounter with Deb’s kidnapper, making sure he remembered every detail. “I haven’t had any lunch,” he finally said, “and it’s nearly four o’clock. Let’s pick up some food.” They stopped for burgers and fries—enough for everybody.

  Cody greeted them when they arrived and turned the Skin & Bones customers over to his salesclerk. “Let’s go,” he said to Joe and Deb. “Frank’s upstairs. Wait till you hear what happened to us.”

  “Looks like we’re going to have some major show-and-tell,” Joe said. They joined Frank, who was sitting at the kitchen table, resting his bandaged ankle on a chair. “We’ve got our own tale,” Joe added, “one we need to tell the police.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows at Cody. “Okay,” Cody said with a resigned sigh. “I guess it’s time to let Dad in on all this. Let’s call him.”

  Deb reported her kidnapping to Sergeant Chang. Then Joe talked to Cody’s dad, telling him that he thought the driver of the green car had followed them from his house. He also reported that Cody’s car was stolen near where the green car was parked. But he agreed with Sergeant Chang there was no proof the driver of the green car stole the SUV.

  “You’ll need to speak to the police and give a description to the police artist,” Joe said to Deb when he hung up. “They’re sending a cruiser for you now.”

  “Okay,” she responded. “But then I’m going home to bed. Today was way more excitement than I needed. Joe, you fill them in. I’ll talk to you all later.” Cody walked her to the door and waited with her until the cruiser arrived.

  “Man, these smell good,” Frank said, grabbing a burger. “Cody was just talking about going out to pick something up. We missed lunch.”

  “You, too?” Joe said. He reached for some fries, brushing a fly away from the bag. “Okay, you heard most of our story—all but the fun part about Deb and the windmill. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. First, what happened to your ankle?” he asked Frank.

  Frank told Joe about his encounter with Mike Brando. Cody came back and chimed in with a few angry additions.

  “Whoa, that was close,” Joe said when they’d finished. “It’s a pretty big coincidence—you getting pushed out of the cable car and Brando appearing a few minutes later.” He batted at another fly buzzing around his head. “Is there a door open somewhere?”

  “Must be,
” Frank said, swatting at his own fly. “We seem to be sharing our meal with unexpected guests.”

  “No!” Cody yelled suddenly. He sprang up from his chair so fast that it fell over behind him.

  Joe looked at Cody, then at Frank. Then he more closely studied the three small bugs crawling across the kitchen table. When he moved his hand, the bugs took to the air, joining a few others circling the counter.

  Joe leaped up from his chair and headed for the stairs. Frank and Cody followed close behind. As they sprinted up to the lab, they were greeted by small swarms of flying insects.

  The lab door was ajar. Joe pushed it open to see what looked like a scene from a horror movie.

  The door to Bug Central stood open. Swarms of dermestid beetles darted from spot to spot, looking for leftover flesh on the bones and skins that were Cody’s current lab projects. Uneven lines of small hairy caterpillars looped across the floor, inched up table legs, and hung from bookshelves.

  8 The Clue in the Claw

  * * *

  There were bugs crawling and swarming everywhere.

  “I’ll get the door,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, close it. We can contain as many as possible in here for now. But it’s really too late,” Cody said sadly. “I’ll have to call the fumigator. All my colonies are lost.”

  They left the lab, closing the door behind them. Cody went to the first floor to send the salesclerk home and close up the shop. Then he went back to his office to call the fumigator. Frank and Joe checked the doors and windows for signs of a break-in. The back door of the office looked as if it had been jimmied.

  “Guys, you have to help me out,” Cody said when he came back to the kitchen. “I have to stay here until the fumigator arrives. But I told Jennifer Payton I’d bring over the stuff for her haunted house today. Can you take it over for me? You’ve got to get out of here, anyway.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Dad’s car is fixed, and he had the van delivered for you. I saw it parked around the corner. Just take it whenever you want. I’m going to have to stick around here until the fumigator’s finished gassing the place. I’ll call you later at Dad’s.”

  “Is this going to be some sort of plague unleashed on the city of San Francisco?” Joe asked.

  “No, actually dermestid beetles are common in households all over North America,” Cody said. “Just not in concentrated colonies in such large numbers. People aren’t aware of them because they’re so small. But now that mine have busted out of Bug Central, I’ve got to get them cleaned out. If I don’t, they’ll ruin my clothes, furniture, everything.”

  “They didn’t just bust out,” Joe said.

  “No, they didn’t,” Cody said through clenched teeth. “Someone let them out.”

  “We were all at your dad’s last night and didn’t get back here till this afternoon,” Frank pointed out. “Plenty of time to do the damage here.”

  “If Mike Brando was driving that green car this morning, it means he knew we were at Dad’s,” Cody said. “He could have known we were there last night, too, and broken in here then. He knew all about the bugs. I’d shown them to him when he was my broker.”

  Cody showed the Hardys a stack of boxes. Inside were the bones and other spooky specimens he had set aside to lend to Jennifer for her haunted house. “Thanks for taking these over,” he said, his voice low. “See you later. Don’t tell Dad about the bugs. I want to tell him myself.”

  “Before we go, I want to get this key thing figured out,” Joe said. “Whoever stole your car had a key, Cody. How many sets of keys to your SUV?”

  “My regular set, which was in the car when you took it over, Joe,” Cody answered. “And an extra set in my file cabinet.”

  “Maybe they’re there,” Frank said, “maybe not.”

  Cody raced to the file cabinet and pulled open the second drawer. After rummaging noisily around the file folders, he turned back to face the others.

  “They’re gone,” he said, his face drawn into a tight scowl. “Whoever trashed my office Monday night must have pocketed them!”

  Joe opened the owner’s manual and showed Cody the small brass chain. “Do these look familiar?”

  “Yeah, that’s them,” Cody said.

  “We’ll give them to your dad,” Frank said. “Maybe he can get some prints off them.”

  “Didn’t you say the driver wore gloves?” Cody asked.

  “Yes,” Joe said. “But you never know. He—or she—might have touched them sometime with bare fingers. It won’t hurt to run a test.” He slipped the owner’s manual back into his jacket pocket.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Frank said. He and Joe piled the boxes on a couple of dollies.

  “Cody’s really down,” Frank said as they worked. “Losing the beetle colony is a pretty low blow. We’ve got to find out who’s doing this. His business can’t stand much more trouble.”

  When they got outside, Joe stopped Frank for a minute to talk. They sat on a bench outside Skin & Bones. “Hey, Frank, are you sure you’re okay?” Joe asked, looking at Frank’s ankle. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  “I’m fine,” Frank said. “It’s just a little sore. And it looks like Mike Brando moves to the top of our suspect list—with at least one accomplice. Remember—if he’s behind the attacks on Cody, he had to have an accomplice while he was in prison.”

  “And you and I were attacked in separate areas of the city at the same time by two different people,” Joe said.

  “That means we’ve also been branded as targets,” Frank said.

  Joe showed Frank the ski cap he had found in the windmill and the small cardboard disk that had fallen out of it.

  “That looks familiar,” Frank said. “Cody had a disk like that in his desk drawer, but it had a different number printed across the center.”

  “What is it?” Joe asked.

  “It’s a tag for a locker at his mailing station. He gets so many weird packages—some of them really large—so he has many of them delivered to a mailing station over on Larkin. They rent him a refrigerated locker there. The number on the front of the tag is the locker number; the number on the back is the combination to the locker padlock.”

  “Good,” Joe said. “Something else to check. We’re finally getting somewhere.”

  “First, let’s get this stuff next door,” Frank said. “Jennifer’s waiting for it.”

  “Before we leave, I want to take another look around Cody’s roof,” Joe said as they pushed the dollies up the sidewalk. “I didn’t get enough time to do a good search. I’d like to have a little more to go on than that scrap of mirror.”

  Frank and Joe took the Skin & Bones merchandise into Reflections. Then Joe excused himself so he could pay a return visit to Cody’s roof while it was still light.

  Meanwhile, Jennifer took Frank on a quick tour of the club. The ceiling of the large room was draped in black, with occasional bursts of tiny red twinkle lights. The large room was divided into small cubicles.

  “Each cubicle will have a separate scary scene,” Jennifer explained.

  “This is quite a place,” Frank said.

  “I inherited it from my grandmother about a year ago,” Jennifer said. “What you see is just the beginning. I’m expanding it big-time. I want to add a restaurant, an outdoor café... maybe a small theater. I’d like to see this neighborhood move from basically retail shops to more of an entertainment area. You know... theaters, music and comedy clubs, restaurants.”

  Jennifer piled costumes on to Frank’s outstretched arms. “I need to take care of some things,” she announced. “Here are the outfits for all of you. We’ve got a short dress rehearsal Thursday evening and a party for all the volunteers afterward. Will you and the others come early and help me set up?”

  “That’d be fun,” Frank said. “See you then. Before I go, may I use your phone?”

  “Sure,” Jennifer said. “There’s one in my office in the far corner.

  Frank sat b
ehind Jennifer’s desk and checked the phone number for the mailing station Cody had mentioned. He dialed the number, and while he waited, he looked at the display of photographs on Jennifer’s wall. She’s a sports and fitness fanatic, he thought to himself. There were photos of Jennifer dressed in every conceivable sports uniform and receiving certificates and awards for every conceivable competition.

  The taped recording told him that the mail stations were closed until seven o’clock the next morning. The room with private mailboxes and lockers was open twenty-four hours.

  Joe was walking in as Frank was walking out. “Did you find anything?” Frank asked his brother as they got into Sergeant Chang’s van.

  “No,” Joe said. “Nothing.”

  On the way back to Sergeant Chang’s, Frank and Joe continued to compare notes. “I know I was pushed off that cable car,” Frank said. “I can’t prove it—but I felt two strong hands on my back.”

  “It can’t be just a coincidence that Mike Brando was nearby,” Joe pointed out.

  “I might not have been the target,” Frank said. “He could have been following Cody and meant to push him. Just when he started to shove, he could have been jostled, lost his balance, and I was the one in the street.”

  “How about the guy on the windmill deck?” Frank asked. “We’re pretty sure it’s the same guy who was driving the green car, right?”

  “Seems likely,” Joe agreed. “The car was parked right there.”

  “Could it be the same guy who kicked you on the roof?”

  “I didn’t get much of an idea about the one on the roof,” Joe reminded him. “First he was crouching, then I was bent over, then he was gone. Actually, it’s pretty much the same thing with the guy on the windmill deck. His back was to me most of the time. Then when he turned around, I was distracted by the danger facing Deb.”

  Frank told Joe about calling the mailing station. “We should get on that,” he said. “That could lead to something.”

  “So how does the club look?” Joe asked. “Is it going to be pretty scary?”